Embracing Destiny
by White Angel of Auralon
Summary: A new year looms on the horizon. A ancient prestigious Tournament is being held at Hogwarts in new form. Harry will show the wizarding world that change can be a really good thing. And perhaps he can find a girlfriend? But what will Dumbledore do to retain his power? Sequel to Forging Destiny
1. New Ideas and Quidditch

**Okay, here is the long-awaited first chapter of my sequel to Forging Destiny. I can't promise really fast updates as I don't have that much pre-written thanks to not having that much time with working, but I have enough to start the story.**

**The normal disclaimer is valid which is I don't own anything of the Potter-verse, only my ideas about the changes. Happy reading.**

* * *

**New Ideas and Quidditch**

Harry sat in a room with some of his friends from different houses at Hogwarts. He and his father had just returned from their summer vacation in France two days ago and now his father was busy with his duties as Minister of Magic. Thanks to over a decade of mismanagement there was still much to do at the Ministry, despite having had four months of cleaning up. One of the major projects was Hogwarts and that was the reason why Harry and nineteen other students were here in this room. From each house of Hogwarts there had been five students chosen to tell honestly where the major problems lay. First each of them had written down their opinions on each subject, the teacher and the resources used to teach the subject.

Next had been a brainstorming session how the students thought a certain subject could be improved, how a teacher could make the students easier understand a subject, what they wished to learn next to the existing subjects and so on. The results were surprising for the Educational Commission to say the least. Most students complained about Professors Binns and Snape, which wasn't that surprising, nearly all praised Professors Lupin, Hagrid and Flitwick and even the Slytherins wanted to add more subjects to the teaching plan and have more teachers to offer more individual support as the heads of houses were so busy that they never had time for things that interested the students like setting up a duelling club or a traditions club.

The research papers had been read as well and the members of the commission agreed that many suggestions were good and worthy of being implemented at Hogwarts. The Ministry had freed one hundred thousand galleons for this year to get things started at Hogwarts. Thanks to the goblins now properly managing the Hogwarts vault with Harry's permission the fund that the founders set up to keep the school running provided them with fifty thousand galleons more per year than it had in the past. That was only one change that had been made possible by Sirius acting as proxy for Harry.

Others were also in progress. All students of Hogwarts had been sent a pamphlet with suggestions for new school uniforms. That had been an idea the girls in Harry's year had come up with and that had spread through the other girls at Hogwarts. They found the standard robes to make them look undesirable and plump. So they had thought that they should simply come up with a school uniform that was looking better, still comfortable and much more modern. Sirius and Harry had agreed with the idea and after seeing suggestions for the school uniforms that were still practical, but looked much better than the robes, Harry as heir of three founders, even if only two were public knowledge, had okayed the pamphlets.

Now all students had time till the end of July to make their decision so that Madam Malkin and the other outfitters for Hogwarts could stock up on the new type of uniform. The teachers had been hesitant to go with it, Dumbledore had thrown a major stink, but in the end it was a decision of the students that was backed by the founders' heir Harry Potter-Black.

Back to the Educational Commission. They would analyse the results and hire teachers for new subjects and some for existing subjects like Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, History of Magic and Defence Against the Dark Arts. While Remus Lupin had broken the curse on the DADA position by coming back to teach for another year, there was much work to do in the subject that a second teacher would be more than needed. Especially as the students needed to catch up after years of incompetent teachers, Professor Lupin being the exception. On top of the existing workload the next years were of higher numbers. There had been more children born after the war had ended. Many couples had decided that it was finally safe enough again to have children after Voldemort was gone and the worst Death Eaters imprisoned. It would still take time to get the numbers of witches and wizards back to a level that was enough to keep the population in Britain stable as many young witches and wizards had been killed by Voldemort before they could have children or they only had one like in Harry's and Susan Bones' cases.

Finally the members of the commission thanked the students for coming and cooperating with the questioning. The students had been from all years third-year and up and five of each house. This ensured that they wouldn't get a too biased opinion of the state of things at Hogwarts. The chosen students were mixed of all origins and ranked from average to good in their classes. This had been done to get ideas how to improve the way classes were taught. After all, the average students would be able to better tell which kind of support they needed to become better at school. A genius like Hermione who could learn easily from books was simply no measuring means for normal students.

* * *

Sirius sat in another meeting concerning the security precautions for the upcoming important matches of the Quidditch World Cup. So far only the qualifications had been held and those had been all over the world in the nations that participated. Only the best thirty two teams would play on English ground. And those matches were to be secured. After all, with the TV now recording all the matches a security breach would be published really quickly. Thankfully he had managed to let Amelia hire more aurors and hit-wizards for the DMLE already. The force had been increased by half the existing numbers and the goal was tripling the original numbers. It would take time as the cadets needed to be trained first, but for now it was enough.

As mass events were uncommon in the wizarding world, Sirius had looked up experts that lived in the muggle world and had them teach the DMLE the basics. A signed magical oath was after all a perfect measure to prevent the magical world being revealed to the muggles. Sirius had met with the Prime Minister already and had introduced himself as the new Minister of Magic one week after being sworn into office. He found the Prime Minister to be a very good conversationalist and they had exchanged ideas over a few hours. The fact that Sirius contrary to Fudge wasn't an arrogant jerk in the Prime Minister's eyes was a massive bonus for him.

Sirius finally explained certain things to the Prime Minister like how the magical world concealed itself, how little most wizards were able to blend in with the muggles and how he intended to lessen the rift between their two people. They worked out ideas how to ease the cooperation between their two law enforcements and agreed on meeting once a month to exchange news. The Prime Minister found it really ironic that the escaped convict that had been wanted only a year ago was now the British Minister of Magic. Sirius had to admit that it was quite unbelievable and humorous.

Amelia explained the plans on how the camp site would be organized and how problems with the muggles would be prevented. They would make sure that the muggles that normally led the camping grounds were sent on vacation during the time of the World Cup. Otherwise the obliviators would have to work overtime and it was much easier to simply put the whole area under muggle repelling charms. Sirius suggested having the Department for International Magical Cooperation take care of setting up the site to avoid conflicts among the Quidditch fans from all over the world. They could set up maps where each booked camp-site was shown and hand out small guides in the language of the visitors to them. It would be best to group those speaking the same language together. That way they could minimize misunderstandings.

The others agreed and the new head of Magical Cooperation promised to take care of the organisation.

Next point on the agenda was managing the masses before and after a match. While in the stadium it would be quite easy to calm whole areas down with runes embedded in the seats if necessary, but after a match was a different story. In the end Rufus suggested storing massive supplies of sleeping potion that could be thrown into pulps that were out of control and simply make the fighting parties fall asleep. It would minimise injuries on side of the DMLE officers and the fighters. The suggestion was also accepted.

* * *

Harry cheered for the Irish team when they won the semi-finals. This was so great. He had had to accompany his father to the matches of England, which had been taken out too early really by Transylvania of all opponents, that was embarrassing, Scotland, a bit better, but still already out of the equation, Wales who had lost because Bulgaria's seeker Krum had caught the snitch before they could score enough goals to go on, but otherwise the team had played well, and Ireland who were now progressing to the finals. And of course he would get to see both semi-finals and the finals no matter who was going to play. Next to Harry his friends cheered for the victory of Ireland against Kenya.

Harry had offered the tickets he had got through his father to all of his friends and to make things fair he had simply drawn the order in which they would be able to come with him. The Weasleys, Hermione and Neville had tickets for the finals through Ron's Dad who had got them from Ludo Bagman, so Harry didn't have to worry about that. He had got four tickets next to his for each match and so for the matches he had enough tickets to let them all see at least one match. Of course tickets for the later matches were more desired.

Harry knew that after the finals, which would be held between Ireland and Bulgaria, as the first semi-final between Bulgaria and Argentina had gone in favour of Bulgaria; there would be a get together for some important guests. He was expected to represent his country next to his father and be on his best behaviour. It was a small sacrifice, but he would get through this. He had learned French, German, Spanish, Italian and Bulgarian through magical courses that could be bought at Flourish and Blott's for two galleons per language. It was a neat trick to quickly learn a language through magic, but it was limited to one language per week and eight in six months. The brain simply couldn't take too much information at once.

But for the World Cup it was perfect and Harry now could converse with guests from other nations fluently, which was important. He didn't know why so few actually used the option. While it was a bit pricey to buy the courses, two galleons for fluent speaking of a language wasn't too much, especially as you didn't lose the knowledge over time. Once you went through the course, the information was put into your mind over night while you slept; you had the knowledge for the rest of your life. Hermione predictably had been angry that she hadn't known about the possibility before. She then had proceeded to also learn French and German. More her parents didn't allow her, but it was a good start for her.

Harry had also finally mastered his animagus transformation and got much praise from his father and his parents' portrait. His lessons in family history were taken over by his Dad's portrait while his Pa was at work. His Mum taught him more about Charms and Potions; her two top subjects at Hogwarts, though she had little to complain about his Charms work. She often gave colourful descriptions of what she wanted to do with Snape for sabotaging her son's and all students' education in Potions like he did. Harry had blushed hearing some of her curses while his Dad had been rolling on the floor laughing. Not that he didn't get a stinging hex at his rear for that. Harry wondered how his Mum could hex his Dad when they both were portraits. He would probably never know.

On the weekends he had trained with his Pa on some other practical skills. Duelling, formally and fighting variants, warding basics, and some Transfiguration. Harry was very happy with how much he had learned so far. He could now finally control the power he had got on top of his former level. That had been annoying in the beginning. While he had been easily able to do spells, the accuracy wasn't always to his liking. He had been taught by his Pa that performing a spell with the right amount of magic was much harder than simply pushing all the magic you could into it. With some spells that could end badly, though none of them was part of the first four years at Hogwarts.

Those spells would come up at OWL level and later for NEWTs. In the beginning channelling enough magic was trying enough for the students. That's why silent casting was only taught after the OWLs. Beginners were busy enough to channel enough magic and perform the wand movements correctly to concentrate completely on the effect they wanted to achieve. Harry had to work on that during his weekend lessons whenever they were covering advanced magic. Which had only started during the last two months of the school year honestly. Other parts had been a higher priority.

Harry would continue taking lessons at the weekends this year to catch up on things about family history, training for being an heir and whatever his father thought would help him in the future. Thankfully Professor Lupin would continue teaching Defence. Harry and all of his classmates had been incredibly happy hearing that. Harry was also glad that so many changes were going to happen at Hogwarts no matter what Dumbledore wanted. The headmaster didn't have the power to go against the decisions of the heirs of the founders if they were backed by half of the student body. And many students were sick of how the standards had been lowered, how discrimination had alienated the houses from each other and especially the girls disliked how the uniforms made them look fat.

Harry wasn't an expert on the last part, but his Pa had told him that it was a girl thing that boys would never understand, and so he decided to simply take it as a statement. The new uniforms were really looking good in his opinion. Some traditionalists in the Ministry had complained when they had heard about the voting results, but as they weren't the ones having to wear them there was nothing they could do but whine, which was met with eye-rolling by their colleagues. Times were changing and those who couldn't adept would be left behind.

Now instead of bulky robes in black the students would wear dark trousers in either blue or black, a white dress shirt or blouse and dark coloured woollen V-neck pullovers with their house's crest stitched on the left side of the chest. For first-years there would be the Hogwarts crest until they were sorted, then a spell would alter it to match their house's crest. Girls could opt to either wear skirts or trousers as their uniform. Boys had to wear ties while girls got shawls in their house's colour.

During feasts the students would add robes that resembled capes. The robes would be in the main colour of their houses, meaning green for Slytherin, blue for Ravenclaw, yellow for Hufflepuff and red for Gryffindor. At the welcoming feast those robes would be handed to the first-years by their respective head of house during the sorting. It was a new part of the sorting ceremony that Harry had decided to include after the choice of school uniforms had been published. He thought it would be nice for the first-years to get something handed that made them feel included directly.

Thanks to the work of the Educational Committee many changes had been started. Snape and Binns had got sacked and new teachers were hired to take their places. The Ministry had ignored Dumbledore's protests and stated that no plan of his concerning using Snape as a possible spy again justified sabotage of the children's education. The Muggle Studies teacher had been given two years off to really learn about how muggles lived and during that time a muggleborn wizard was taking over her position. Muggle Studies was also made mandatory from first year on to enable the children to really blend into the muggle world and not stand out sorely. As no representatives of the Dark Faction with enough political clout were left that motion had passed easily. Additionally the Wizarding Traditions class that many students had wished to get was also made a mandatory class from first year on.

Charms, Defence, Transfiguration and Potions now had two teachers each. One for the first three years and one for the fourth-years and up. That lessened the work-load of the heads of houses immensely. Professor Flitwick had already announced that he would sponsor a Duelling Club and a Charms Club from the start of the new school year. Professor McGonagall while not starting any clubs was glad that she now would finally get at least a little free time after having done too much in her three positions at the school. For Potions an American Potions master and his apprentice had been hired. The apprentice would take care of teaching the first-years and helping watch over the brewing of the older years. From what Harry had heard his father tell after work the new teacher intended to first get a solid theoretical case on brewing techniques, ingredient reactions and ingredient preparation before allowing the students to start brewing. As far as anybody knew he was extremely strict, but also fair. Alone the second part would be a major improvement to Snape.

Trelawney meanwhile had decided to leave on her own, feeling insulted that the Ministry demanded her to prove her competence for teaching. The subject had been dropped from the lesson plan as true seers were rare and if a child showed signs of being a seer it would get supported and get lessons by an acknowledged seer on the weekends. There was little that could be taught though besides meditation techniques. The gift took over when it wanted and mostly the seer had to let it run its course while being a bystander.

Harry was really looking forward to the next year.

* * *

Sirius had triple checked everything in preparation for the finals of the Quidditch World Cup. So far everything had gone perfectly, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. He was a bit sorry that thanks to his many appointments his son got to see him little during the week, but Harry didn't complain. He had known before that being Minister would take a lot of Sirius' time in the beginning and his friends were more than happy to have Harry over to hang out. Thanks to having a floo at home Harry could visit Neville, Ron, Susan and all the others he wanted to see whenever he wanted and they had time.

Sirius knew that Harry had spent long days at the Weasleys flying and playing Quidditch, helped Neville set up a new greenhouse at his home and went shopping with Susan and Hannah after losing a bet with the red-haired girl. He had taken it like a gentleman and carried her bags until he could unsuspiciously call a house elf to bring them back to the girl's home. Though he had got a day with two beautiful girls out of it and he didn't see Harry complain about it. He was noticing girls more and he was ready to face Harry having a girlfriend soon. There were some girls Harry had said were pretty and whom he wouldn't mind dating if he found them as interesting character wise as they were from their looks.

The finals would start at eight and he would be glad when everything was done. As great as Quidditch was, it was strenuous to have to deal with his representative duties on top of the still on-going cleaning at the Ministry. They had probably got rid of a third of the useless workers, but there was still a lot to do. The processes needed to be made much leaner and faster. While weeding out the corrupt workers had been top priority and had happened within the first month of his taking the job, the monster that was sleeping under the mask of the Ministry of Magic was fighting them at every corner. Probably they would only win after two years of hard work. But as long as they could cleanse one department after the other, starting with the most critical ones, they would manage. And thankfully right now there was no sign of Voldemort. Dumbledore was also keeping silent for now. No doubt the old man was planning something to get back into the game, but he would do everything to cut him short wherever he could.

Harry's safety depended on him isolating Dumbledore. The man was crafty and hadn't played the political game for as long as he did by being stupid. No, he was lying low and watching what happened. He knew that he couldn't do much until he got an opening. And until then he would wait and collect his power. Still, the first opportunity Sirius got he would make sure that Dumbledore would have to let go of some of his political influence, starting with the ICW. He could play the time card. And he had powerful arguments. Due to Dumbledore having to fill three positions many things had Hogwarts had gone down the drain. He wouldn't openly accuse Dumbledore of doing things intentionally, no for that he had still too much of a good reputation. No, he would argue that understandably with higher age he couldn't continue to give each position his full attention that he could give it years before when he took them up.

So to ensure that he could fill his position at Hogwarts properly he would ask Professor Dumbledore to give up one political position. He knew that Dumbledore would choose the ICW position as it didn't give him any direct power in Great Britain. The Chief Warlock was much more useful for him right now. He didn't want to have him pushed out of all positions until he was sure he could counter whatever plan Dumbledore thought up if he wasn't busy with other duties. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer was the motto. As long as he knew where Dumbledore was he could counter his plans. More, at Hogwarts he could do the least damage because Harry could take complete control over the castle if necessary and would take over the wards for sure once he turned sixteen. Right now he was too young for that.

His magic wasn't mature enough. It was strong, but even a highly powerful child that had more raw magic than an average adult wizard wouldn't be able to keep wards under control. Magical maturity started with fifteen. The first stage of puberty would be over and the second stage start. From the fifteenth to seventeenth year of life of a magical child its magic settled and was more in balance with the child's body. That was the major reason why the most important tests were done within that period. Before starting maturity a child wouldn't be able to take the strain from most spells. Magical maturity didn't mean, as many thought wrongly, that the magic of a child grew, it meant that the raw potential a child had become accessible to it. The effect was similar, so the mistake was understandable. But the potential of a child could be determined once it showed the first accidental magic. The sooner it happened the bigger the potential. Sirius knew that Harry had shown accidental magic with a few months.

* * *

Harry sat in the top box which his father had reserved for the Quidditch World Cup to host all the important guests that came and got to sit with the British Minister of Magic. It was the final match of the World Cup and it was a fantastic show-off. On the one side the Irish with their spectacular chaser chain and on the other Bulgaria with their star seeker Viktor Krum.

The stadium was really great. It had been specially built for this whole event and Harry knew that everything here would be recorded by a JWT team and tomorrow morning those that didn't come here would be able to see the complete match on TV. And as it was the finals, there was more pressure on the team to make everything perfect. Different angles of viewing, comments on tactics, explanations of manoeuvres accompanied the visuals. The crystals and TVs had become an absolute hit once the World Cup started. Those that had them told their friends that didn't what they could do and often viewing parties were held where the latest great match was watched. Each crystal could record up to eight hours of material, so there hadn't been a problem so far with the matches. Only one match had gone on for longer than the eight hours, but after seven hours there had been a break for the players to get exchanged and eat something, so the ones recording the game had then been able to make a cut and use a second crystal.

The group responsible for the crystal production had also come up with another hit, a best-off series. The matches were cut to only show the most impressive scenes during the match, cutting the actual time down considerably. So the eight groups that had competed for the sixteen spots got a crystal each for their matches in combined fashion, the same for the next rounds. For the semi-finals and the finals there would be more scenes shown than on the other best-off crystals. Harry hadn't had the opportunity to watch more than one of them, but he was impressed with the idea. It was a lot like the sports news on TV that Uncle Vernon had always watched on Saturdays.

Harry was grateful that he didn't have to wear formal robes. This was after all a sports event, so good-looking semi-formal clothes would work.

The ones with him were Alicia Spinnet, Emilia Grey and Keith Belarus. They had won the draw for the tickets for the finals. Of course there were also the Weasleys with Hermione and Neville in the box. Harry was wearing an Ireland rosette in support of the last team from the British Isles. And the attack force of the Irish was incredible. He had never seen such great tactics from chasers. Though the abilities of Krum were also fantastic. It was clear why he was the currently best seeker in the world. Harry really wanted to test some of the moves Krum had used on his own firebolt. He wondered if the bet that Fred and George had talked about, they had bet Bagman that Ireland would win but Krum catch the snitch, would work out for them.

While he knew that thanks to their increased effort in their schoolwork to get internships they wanted at JWT their grades had skyrocketed much to the shock of most Professors, he didn't think they had that much money to be careless risking it in a bet. While there was a good chance that it would happen, the Irish only needed one more goal to pull away one hundred and sixty points which would make the catch of the snitch useless for Bulgaria to win this, he was worried about his friends. He knew of their dream of opening a joke shop. Well, a joke shop with some side-lines of products that would sell well even if they weren't classical joke products. They had told him after returning from the JWT tour their father had given them that they had realised that there were lots of products that the wizarding world hadn't thought of inventing before.

They had a number of ideas that would work out and they had promised themselves that they would use the time they had left at Hogwarts to do market research and find ways to create their future products. Harry meanwhile was thinking that if he could win the twins for JWT it would bring him immense profit in the future. Perhaps if they wanted to be their own boss he could set them up with starting capital and get a share in the business. At least Mrs Weasley had been so happy about the OWL results of the twins, eight OWLs each with O's in Charms, Potions, Transfiguration and Ancient Runes and E's in Muggle Studies, Herbology and DADA and an A in Astronomy. Nobody had expected for them to perform brilliantly like that. That they had failed History wasn't a problem. They blankly said that they hadn't learned at all for that OWL as it was impossible to stay awake in Binns' classes and had used the time they would have needed to spend learning the History book on their other subjects, especially Potions.

While Snape was an arse and they could easily learn what they needed in Potions otherwise, if the reform of the Hogwarts education that had been announced after Sirius had been elected Minister meant that they got a new Potions teacher and he or she still required an OWL they didn't want to miss that chance. With a proper teacher there was a lot that they could learn which would help make their products better.

Harry saw that Ireland scored again, if Krum now caught the snitch the result the twins had foretold would happen and after Krum got hit into the face by a bludger Lynch seemed to have spotted the snitch. Krum swiftly followed. It was a neck-on-neck dive which led to Lynch kissing the ground again and Krum catching the snitch. Ireland had won but Krum caught the snitch. The twins were grinning massively when they held open their hands facing Bagman.

* * *

Harry was playing the epitome of the perfect son of the Minister of Magic during the reception after the match. He knew how important this was for his Pa and he didn't want to disappoint him. So he made polite conversation with the state guests, talked to the Quidditch players and congratulated them to their spectacular performance and commented on his thoughts on changes that his Pa had started at the Ministry. He would rather celebrate with his friends in private, but he had no choice.

Thankfully the security measures worked out perfectly so far and nothing had happened to disturb the happy Quidditch fans. There had been some small frictions between Irish and Bulgarian fans, but the security force had everything under control. Around two in the morning Harry could finally excuse himself to get some sleep. He used the portkey he had been given to get back home as it would be too dangerous for the Minister's son to sleep at the camping ground. He knew that his Pa would also portkey home once the reception was over.

* * *

**Okay, that's it for today, it's more or less the introduction to a few changes. The main part will start next chapter. I will try to update at least once a month.**


	2. Announcements

**Hi, here is the next chapter of Embracing Destiny. I'm astonished that I got over a hundred reviews just for the first chapter. THanks a lot for that. Special thanks for this chapter go to my new beta Reader4972. She corrected this chapter really fast.**

**Now happy reading.**

* * *

**Announcements**

The Daily Prophet praised the finals of the Quidditch World Cup and the new World Cup winners, Ireland, in the morning edition the next day. Harry knew that around this time the crystals with the recordings of the match would already be watched by the fanatic fans on their TVs. He knew that the JWT team had left as soon as the winners had been determined to get the crystals ready for sending out. Transferring the recordings took an hour per full original crystal and at one time you could deal with ten thousand crystals at once. While the full match was transferred into the crystals, the crew created the cut together versions with comments and presentation ceremony. Time was of the essence in this as the people paid good money to get their crystals close to the end of the matches.

Harry was happy that everything had worked out so well. Now that the Quidditch World Cup was over he would be able to relax a bit on his public appearances. He had planned to visit the Weasleys and Neville before returning to Hogwarts and his Pa had promised him to take him school shopping next weekend. Sadly they would have to take a few bodyguards with them, but he would endure that for a day out with his father. On the plus side, most of the aurors that normally got stuck with guard duty were cool. He especially liked his Pa's cousin Tonks, who was a blast and never stopped entertaining him with her metamorphmagus abilities. Seeing her use them made him realise how much you could do with the talent. His own attempts at morphing weren't as advanced as hers by far.

His Pa had told Harry that thanks to the school reforms, students could now return home two weekends each month even if they weren't the heirs of their family. Hogwarts was after all a school and not a prison. Many families had massively greeted that change even if Professor Dumbledore had argued that it wouldn't be safe and a massive organisational problem to allow it. Sirius had put the Department of Magical Transportation on the task and they had come up with a simple schedule system. The heads of the four houses' floos would be the ones that each student had to use to leave or return which meant that, as each house had currently at most ten students per year, if each house got an hour and a half on Friday to let the students return or for those that preferred Saturday morning during that time it wouldn't be any trouble at all. The floo system could take the additional use no problem. Not to mention that with the time-window the heads of houses would know exactly who had left and was now in the care of their parents. The parents had to sign permission forms before the students could use the option which relieved the teachers of their responsibility for the student in question for the weekend until the student returned and signed in again.

So the plan was that two houses would have their free weekend opportunity at the same time changing each week. For example Slytherin and Ravenclaw the first weekend and Gryffindor and Hufflepuff the second, then the other two again and so on. The one thing the students needed to make sure of was of course that they got their homework done on time. Those that slacked off and didn't get passing grades or didn't do their homework would lose their privileges. Nobody was worried about that. With a bit of organisation, getting everything done in time was more than possible. Also without Snape to fail students intentionally just to take away privileges, this would work out just fine.

* * *

Sirius was looking over the final draft for the tasks for the Tournament. They were difficult, that was for sure, but they were manageable and not too dangerous. More than perhaps a few burns from firecrabs or cuts from thorns of plants shouldn't happen to the champions. And contrary to the old version this would involve more students of the school. While Madame Maxime and Professor Karkaroff, who had been warned that he wouldn't be able to pass into Hogwarts itself thanks to the Dark Mark wards that had been set up over the summer and that he needed to send a proxy to represent Durmstrang, had argued that the Triwizard Tournament had always been a contest between three students, one of each school, Sirius had won them over for the idea of having a Trischool Tournament from now on.

It allowed more students from each school to show their skills which would help promoting the excellent education each school offered. In the end, they had all signed and the Tournament would be announced at the opening feasts of each school. This would bring a lot of positive attention to the schools and especially Hogwarts needed to show his new educational reforms were working.

* * *

Albus was looking over the contract for the Tournament. While it wasn't what he had wanted, it would suffice. It was a breach of tradition to make the Triwizard Tournament into a Trischool Tournament. His plans to enter Harry outside of the allowed participants wouldn't work anymore as the minimum age for entering a team was fourteen. And the one choosing wouldn't be the Goblet of Fire as it should have been, but another artefact of the Ministry that would determine the team that would be allowed to take a task. Sirius had put his foot down at forcing teenagers into magical contracts that could take their magic away. Instead now if anybody decided to retreat he would be fined one hundred galleons which would go into the fund for stipends and another student would replace him. In case of a documented sickness or severe injury on the participant's part by a neutral healer of St. Mungo's the fine would be waved and another participant chosen to replace the leaving one for the rest of the Tournament. Of course that wouldn't happen often and the seriousness of the commitment would still be stressed. And a hundred galleons for simply getting cold feet was harsh. For most families with one person working that was a quarter of their monthly income.

After all, a normal shop assistant got about four hundred galleons a month and an entry position at the Ministry brought six hundred. Arthur Weasley as head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Department had earned about thousand. Healers earned around five hundred in training and started with nine hundred when they passed their tests. Specialised healers normally had around two thousand. But with how the level of competency had sunk most people earned around four to six hundred galleons.

Compared to former Tournaments the tasks were tame, but by trying to make it safe for all participants while still keeping it a major challenge, the ones that had been tasked to think up proper tasks had really achieved a good end result. He remembered them all of course, some of Hogwarts' brightest graduates. While they had given them a basic idea what kind of tasks they had discussed and which subjects would be included they hadn't given away the final tasks. That way nobody could cheat to give his students any advantages. Well, he was an experienced player of any field; he would manage to turn this into his show and not Sirius'. The dratted man had taken too much power from him already thanks to being the father of the boy who was a triple Hogwarts heir. He had replaced teachers that had been important for Albus' plans, remedied curriculums of several subjects, freed enough of the budget for things that were absolutely needed like new brooms and had reinstated some subjects like Wizarding Traditions that had fallen away over time.

The only positive thing was that the budget of Hogwarts was now higher thanks to the Ministry giving a high percentage of confiscated Death Eater gold to the school and more money that was gained from the fund the founders had set up. It was a publicity coup, that much was obvious. For those Death Eaters that had lost their magic thanks to the new ruling at the Wizengamot the Ministry had confiscated a quarter of their fortunes as reparation fines to help repair the damage that had been done in the war against Voldemort. Hogwarts got forty per cent of the gold, St. Mungo's thirty and the Ministry thirty. For any future dark uprisings the same would hold true.

So far Sirius had made the important points, but he would strike back. While he couldn't directly attack Harry, who was Sirius' one major weak point, at Hogwarts thanks to his heir status, he could make life for Harry more difficult otherwise. Of course he needed to conceal his involvement in the incidents that would soon make Harry's life more difficult. He was sure that the children of the Death Eaters that had lost their magic would be eager to get back at Harry to hurt his father. And who could have eyes everywhere all the time?

* * *

Harry sat at the Gryffindor table watching the line of first-years march up to the head table. Contrary to past years they didn't all wear black robes, but the new school uniforms. Their feast robes were ready to be handed to them after the Sorting Hat announced his decision. Therefore, as the four heads of houses were going to hand over the robes based in black with trims and hoods in red, yellow, green and blue to each new student, the one leading up the first-years was Remus this time. The four heads of house, Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and Sinistra, who had taken over Slytherin House from Snape, were standing in front of the table smiling at the new students warmly.

After the hat had finished his new song about bringing the houses closer and embracing traditions and progress in their world equally Remus started reading out the names.

"Ackerley, Stewart," he called out loudly and the boy walked forward, trembling from head to toe, perhaps because he was the first one to be sorted.

The hat pondered a bit and then declared 'Ravenclaw'. Professor Flitwick stepped forward and handed Stewart a blue cape, welcoming him to Ravenclaw, which the boy placed on his back and then walked over to the table sporting the same blue capes as him that was clapping loudly for him.

One after another the new students were called forward by Remus and the head of their new house handed them the cape welcoming them. Soon the tense atmosphere of the first-years lessened and they found their places with their new house-mates. With the new welcoming and handing over of capes the sorting took a bit longer than normally but the new first-years clearly appreciated it.

Finally the last student was sorted and Dumbledore stood from his seat once all the other teachers had taken their seats and the stool and Sorting Hat had been taken away. He greeted everybody and told them to 'tuck in'.

Once everybody had eater their fill, or more in some cases, Dumbledore stood again.

"I have a few announcements to make for this year. First let me introduce our new teachers to you. Professor Quirke will take over the new mandatory class of Wizarding Traditions that is being added to the time-tables of all students up to fifth year, after that you can decide if you want to continue the class, but like all others it depends on achieving an OWL in the class. For our sixth and seventh years that obviously didn't have the chance in the past Professor Quirke will offer the class as an elective" Great applause greeted that announcement as many students looked forward to the class. "The next of our new teachers is Professor Daffodil who will take over Muggle Studies which is also now a mandatory class up to fifth year. Those of you that have taken the class as an elective so far will of course continue where you left off under Professor Burbage who has taken a sabbatical to increase her knowledge of the muggle world to catch up to recent developments." Polite applause greeted the second Professor and some sneers from students whose parents detested muggles.

"The next new teacher is Professor Simonson who will take over History of Magic." That caused cheers in all houses as Binns had been dreadfully boring.

Dumbledore had to hide his annoyance that he hadn't been able to stop the replacements, but with Harry being the heir of two founders by birth right, and if he suspected correctly, the third one through right of conquest, there was no stopping this. He would select battles that he could win from here on.

"Now for Potions we have two new faces on staff, first Professor Gildenstir and second his apprentice Miss Topper. Miss Topper will take over the first and second year classes and give a refresher course of two double periods on proper ingredient preparation and brewing techniques for all the older years." This caused louder applause and cheers from three houses as Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor had hated Snape. "To assist the heads of houses in their duties we have hired three more teachers which are Mr Flowfeather for Charms, Mr Talbot for Herbology and Miss Velcrom for Transfiguration." They were all greeted with polite applause. "They will take over the first to third-year classes in their respective subjects. Now replacing Professor Snape as head of Slytherin is Professor Sinistra. As few students take her class beyond OWLs she has told us that she can take over the duties of head of house in addition to her teaching responsibilities without an assistant."

Dumbledore waited until the talking about the new teachers calmed down.

"Now that I have introduced your new teachers, I have to inform you that the normal Quidditch Cup won't take place this year." That caused protests from all houses. Dumbledore held up his hands placating the students. "As we are aware that you love your sport too much to completely go without it, we have decided to hold a short tournament in one week in April where on four days all Quidditch matches will take place. The reason for this is that this year Hogwarts will be hosting a famous event that has been given a new face and which will take up most of the time of the teachers." Dumbledore explained, seeing that the students had calmed down hearing that they would at least have some Quidditch even if it was concentrated on four days.

"It is my pleasure to announce that in October the Trischool Tournament, formerly known as the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts." Dumbledore announced grandly.

"You're joking." Fred Weasley called out excitedly.

"No, Mr Weasley this isn't a joke, but I know a good one about a Japanese wizard," he caught the disapproving look of Professor McGonagall, "well, perhaps another time. For those of you that know about the Triwizard Tournament already, please be patient while I explain to those that don't its history. The Tournament was instated as a competition between the three leading magical schools in Europe, Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. One student from each school was chosen as a champion and had to compete in three difficult tasks against the other two. Eternal glory and fame awaits the winner of the Tournament. But, due to the high death toll, the Tournament had been stopped in the seventeen hundreds. Now our very own Ministry of Magic has decided to restart it with a new face. Instead of one champion of each school a team of seven students will be chosen to complete three tasks. The members of the team will either have to solve the tasks on their own or as a team, their points will be put together and the team with most points will in the end be declared Trischool Tournament winners. The winning team's members will get trophies to keep and personal prize money of five hundred galleons."

This brought excited talking about again which Dumbledore waited to stop for a few minutes.

"I know that you all are eager to be chosen for Hogwarts, but to make sure that only the best of each school that are also capable of dealing with the tasks can compete only those in fourth year or above are allowed to participate. You can sign up as a candidate for Hogwarts with your head of house who will then hand in a list of potential candidates. Be aware that the Tournament will be taking up a lot of time and you still have to deal with all of your normal schoolwork. While the champions are given some privileges two weeks before each task, you still have to sit your end of year exams. In the past the champions were exempt from the exams but it was pointed out that it wouldn't do any of the champions any good if they skipped their exams, especially if they are in fifth or seventh year where OWLs and NEWTs are coming up. The tasks therefore are going to take place in November, February and May. With exams taking place in June, you will have enough time for revision and you should learn a lot more than normally anyway to prepare for the tasks. The delegations of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will arrive on the thirtieth of October. I trust you to welcome them as the honoured guest that they are. Now I have taken up enough of your time, off to bed you lot." He chuckled in the end, knowing that his presentation had been a good one.

* * *

Harry sat with his friends at the Gryffindor table looking at his time-table for the year. It was pretty full, which was to be expected with the addition of the new mandatory classes. He only hoped that the teachers would keep the homework load to a doable level. Otherwise many students would crack this year. He saw that he first had History, which would be interesting to see how the new teacher was, then Herbology, double Charms and Muggle Studies before lunch. After lunch he had a double period of Transfiguration and Ancient Runes. He knew that next to the classes a few teachers had been asked to adjust their curriculum. From what Neville had said there had been orders for a few new plants for the greenhouses. And normally Neville knew what was going on in his favourite subject.

So after breakfast the Gryffindor fourth years trooped to the new History of Magic classroom on the second floor. Professor Simonson was already waiting for them while looking out of the window. Harry saw that the Hufflepuffs, who shared this class with Gryffindor, were nearly all present already. To all of their surprise, there were no tables and chairs in the room. When they were all present Professor Simonson turned to them.

"Good morning class." He greeted them cheerfully.

"Good morning Professor." They greeted back.

"Alright, first things first, I guess you are wondering why there are no tables and chairs in the room." He said and got united nods. "Well, there is a good reason for this. After hearing how badly you are in need of more exciting History classes I decided to get you into action before we start with lectures. I need to know how much or little you have taken in from the classes my predecessor held. So I have prepared a little game. All over the school I have placed checkpoints. At each checkpoint you will have to answer a question or solve a task that is related to History of Magic. You are only allowed your wands and your textbook which is set for this class. Of course you will get more points in this game if you don't need to look answers up. There are twenty five checkpoints that you need to hit to finish the game. Of course it is impossible to finish this within the little time we have for this period, therefore you get three days to finish. You can do it whenever you aren't in other classes. I have cleared with my colleagues that you won't get any homework the first three days that is anything but practicing spells so you shouldn't have any problems getting to all stations." He earned excited whispers about this.

"Now, of course a game like this is boring if you do it by yourself. Therefore you will draw numbers. Two people will be a team and you have to get to the checkpoints together and tap the red marker with both of your wands at the same time to get the question or task that is set. Don't wonder if you find more markers of other colours, I have set this game up for all years. Your questions and tasks will only be found with the red markers. The first-years for example mostly get tasks to learn more about History as they of course didn't have classes so far. Their markers are blue. Alright, come up here to draw your number and then find your partner. Once you have your partner you can come up to me and get the official game sheets. There are twenty five numbers on it, giving you more than enough space to either write the answer to a question down or write a short description of the task and what you learned from it."

All students formed a line and then were allowed to draw pieces of paper with numbers on them. They looked for their partners for this game and formed the teams. As the number of students in the class was even, there was no team of three. Harry found himself next to Hannah Abbot. They had the number five. Soon they got the answer sheet which bore the number five circled in the top left corner.

"Come on; let's see if we can find some red markers." Hannah said and they took off, only taking one history book with them as was the rule.

* * *

Within the first period which they had History in Harry and Hannah found three markers. One was on the same corridor as the History classroom; one was at the Owlery and one in the Entrance Hall. All three held questions. Harry could easily answer the one about witch burnings and Hannah knew the one about the invention of the floo network. The last one both had to look up as neither of them had really spent much time reading up on the settlement of the potioneer revolt of 1547. They compared their time tables and agreed to meet again after lunch to use the half hour that they would have to find more markers to get the game going on. Not to mention that they would look out for more markers to get there faster. The next time they would have would be after dinner, which they also agreed to use. This was a fun way to deal with History of Magic after all.

* * *

The three days that the students had got to finish the History game were filled with laughter and running of students around the school. Especially the first and second-years loved the way Professor Simonson was having them learn about history. It was fun and the fact that the other teachers didn't give them much homework was only a bonus. The other teachers had agreed to this as they all knew that History had suffered massively in the past decades that Binns had taught and were willing to postpone longer homework for when the game was over. Not to mention that nobody cared that much during the first week of term.

Dumbledore of course thought it wasn't dignified to let the children learn this way but he was more or less ignored. It was seen as an experiment and anything was better than the monotonous droning of Cuthbert Binns. As all years had their first class of History within the first three days, they were all done once the week was over. Professor Simonson now only needed to look over the answer sheets that the different teams had handed in. What none of the students knew was that he had placed charms on both the markers and the sheets to know which questions were answered without the books and which weren't. Simple observation charms would do that. By tapping the markers with their wands he could activate the charms and if the book that each group had with them was opened there would be an automatic subtraction of a point. He planned to hand out small prizes for the three best teams in each year. The presentation ceremony would be held in the Great Hall. By mixing tasks with knowledge, he could make sure that not only the few that had done self-study in previous years had a chance.

* * *

It was Saturday evening and Professor Simonson had asked that all students were in the Great Hall at eight o'clock, because he wanted to announce the winners of the History game and present the prizes that the winning teams had won. That led to all students being excited to see how they had done. The game had been fun and even if no sixth and seventh years had taken History as a subject, they were curious as they had heard from their younger housemates about the game. So after finishing with eating all students remained in the Great Hall. Finally Professor Simonson stood up and picked up a big bag from behind his chair and walked around the head table to stand in front of all students.

"Thank you all for following my request. I'm sure you all are curious how you have done in the game that I arranged the past week. I'm happy to say that most teams got at least half of all questions and tasks done which I was really worried about after how most of you thought History to be nap time." He said and got some laughs from the students. "Now, I have decided that each game is only really good if you get a prize if you did well. Therefore I made a little trip to Hogsmeade and bought a few sweets from Honeydukes which I think you will find suitable for the winning teams."

This made the students listen more attentively as free sweets were always great. They wondered if they were among those that would get some.

"I have finished looking over the answer sheets of each team and have listed the points each team received. To make everybody understand how the points were given I'll give a brief explanation. The markers and the answer sheets were charmed to tell me if for answering a question the books were used or not. That cost you a point per question, but as each question was worth at least three points that wouldn't kick you out of the running automatically. Oh and added pieces of parchment weren't considered by the way as the space given for the answers was more than enough to get the information I was looking for written down." That caused some Ravenclaws and Hermione to slump down in disappointment. "Which offers me the chance to give an advanced warning. I won't read through essays that are much longer than what I requested. If I, for example, set you ten inches I will at most read eleven. Everything above that will be ignored. I expect you to do your homework in concentrated form, not skipping any important details. Otherwise your grades will reflect it, so you have been warned."

He knew that a lot of students that tended to hand in overly long essays would have trouble with that but he didn't care. He wouldn't read more than necessary. He had enough work to do with getting the students caught up after years of improper teaching.

"Now back to the prizes which are probably what you are interested in most. The ones coming in third for each year will get a box of five chocolate frogs each. The ones being second get a box mixed with three chocolate frogs, three liquorice wands and three ice mice. And for the first place winners I have a small basket with a selection of ten kinds of sweets." The students cheered at that announcement. "So let's get to the winners of the prizes. For first year, which I have to admit did a lot better than I thought as you had to look up facts in the book as you didn't have prior classes before, the third place goes to Orla Quirke and Fin Glommes." The Ravenclaw and Slytherin happily came to the front and took their chocolate frog boxes.

The announcement of the winners took a while. Finally for Harry it was time for his year.

"Now the fourth-years. In third place we have Terry Boot and Tracy Davis." The two grinned and stepped forward.

Tracy was especially smug as she had been the one to point out that if they were required to give more information than the space allowed their teacher would have said so.

"The second place goes to Daphne Greengrass and Blaize Zabini." Professor Simonson called the next team. They took their boxes smiling.

"And first place goes to Hannah Abbot and Harry Potter-Black." He said, surprising many as they had thought that Hermione Granger would win for sure with her being the only one to ever stay awake in history all the time.

Harry and Hannah stepped forward and took the baskets grinning at each other. Harry's pensieve lessons had really come in handy and Hannah wasn't a slouch either as she and many other Hufflepuffs had taken to ignore Binns and read the textbook on their own to pass their exams every year.

The presentation for the fifth-years followed and then they could all go back to their dorms. Harry was really happy that he had managed to beat Hermione in something that should have been her strength. When they were back in the common room she admitted grumbling that she and Earnie had been among those that had added additional pieces of parchment to be sure to get all the information they had on the questions mentioned.

* * *

**And finished. How did you like it? Till next time.**


	3. Arrival of the Schools

**Hi, here is the new chapter. My beta, Reader 4972 has done a great job at correcting my mistakes again (cursed punctuation). So now enjoy.**

* * *

**Arrival of the Schools**

The students adjusted to their new daily routine quickly. History was now a popular subject, as was Potions. While Professor Gildenstir was even stricter in his classes than Snape had been, he was fairer and didn't bully his students. Instead of verbally attacking them, he set those that messed around large amounts of additional homework and detention where he had them repeat the material that they had missed and let them see what messing around could do to a potion. When Parvati Patil returned to the Gryffindor common room one night racing to her dorm looking sick one evening after a detention with their new Potions teacher, it didn't take long for the whole school to find out which methods of making students realise how important working properly in class was. Parvati had been forced to use her messed up potion from the class that morning to feed to a cute brown bunny. It was unnecessary to say that seeing the cute bunny die painfully because of her potion had made her swear to not ignore the teacher's warnings in the future.

While some teachers had tried to reprimand Professor Gildenstir for his harsh methods, he asked them if they would like it better if he let children think that their potions were passable, and when they tried them out on themselves they would get poisoned. Potions was a dangerous class and messing around there could lead to death. He wouldn't be responsible for that under his watch. After a few of those demonstrations all students now worked very concentrated. They didn't want to be confronted with the horror of seeing an animal die from their botched up work. Wizarding Traditions started well and the students were glad that they finally learned more about the traditions that their world cherished, how different countries had different traditions and the reasons for them and which ones they would be able to follow at Hogwarts from now on.

Some traditional celebrations for example would be reinstated and for older years some magic strengthening rituals of the light variant would be allowed to be performed. Though before it could happen the students needed to study the procedures thoroughly as ritual magic was still risky.

* * *

Right now the whole student-body stood outside of the castle waiting for the delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang to arrive. It was the thirtieth of October and the selection of the champions would take place tomorrow in a grand ceremony. Today was to greet their guests and make them feel welcome at Hogwarts. The castle gleamed like never before as the house elves had cleaned up every single nook until there wasn't a spot of dirt left anywhere. The students wore their house robes and stood sorted by years and houses giving a colourful picture. They stood in the same order as the house tables were in the Great Hall; Slytherin on the left to Gryffindor on the right.

The arrival of the Beauxbatons students in a flying carriage broke the boredom of simply waiting, and the students applauded politely when Madame Maxime exited the powder blue carriage and introduced her students. They were all probably fifth year and up from how they looked. For some reason they didn't seem to consider that Scotland was a cold place this time of year and many were shivering in their thin, silk robes. They all went into the Great Hall to warm up while the Hogwarts students stayed to wait for the Durmstrang delegation. They arrived with a ship that emerged from the depth of the Black Lake. Dumbledore greeted Professor Rissof, the deputy headmaster.

From his father, Harry knew that the headmaster of Durmstrang, Igor Karkaroff, was a Death Eater who had bought his freedom by sending many others to Azkaban through giving up names. With the anti-dark mark wards that the school had now, he couldn't come to represent Durmstrang. Well, Harry was glad that they could be sure that those coming into the school weren't Death Eaters. Many students recognised Viktor Krum among the Durmstrang contingent. Harry gave him a polite nod in recognition as he had met the older boy at the after match party that his father had organised.

Then they could finally go back inside. As there were about forty students visiting from each school they needed to split up into groups of twenty to fit onto the long house tables. Gryffindor got half of the Beauxbatons contingent with Ravenclaw getting the other, and the Durmstrang group sat among the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs. Ron moaned quietly that Krum had gone to the Slytherin table. At the head table there were a few additional chairs as well. Harry knew that his father would come tonight to open the Tournament with Professor Dumbledore. Next to him there would be the group that had thought up the tasks to assist the heads of houses to note all the names of the students that wanted to compete in the Tournament. With seven students being able to represent Hogwarts, there was a good chance for everybody to get chosen.

The panel of judges would be made up from the three heads of the schools, Madam Marchbanks and Rufus Scrimgeour as nobody trusted Barty Crouch and Ludo Bagman, who led the departments that were most involved in the reinstatement of the Tournament. Ludo Bagman was in debt with the goblins and Sirius had him demoted and arranged that half of his salary was directly paid to the goblins to not mess up the relations with the goblin nation. Crouch was still down over the whole affair of sending the current Minister to Azkaban for over a decade innocently, and had lost the position of head of his department as well in the aftermath. He was only still employed because other departments were more important to clean up, and at least Crouch wasn't a supporter of dark magic even if he was ruthless.

* * *

After the meal Professor Dumbledore stood up and addressed the students.

"Now that our stomachs are pleasantly full I would like to inform you about how our school teams are going to be chosen." He started and everybody listened to him. "As you all know, all students from fourth year and up can put up their name for consideration as a school champion. Each team will be made up of the seven best suited ones. As the teachers of each school might have personal favourites, a neutral way of choosing needed to be found. In the past with the Triwizard Tournament the Goblet of Fire acted as the neutral judge and selected one champion per school. As the Ministry has decided that placing students into a magically binding contract that could cost them their magic if they decided to back out of the Tournament for whatever reason, was a bad idea, a new way had to be found. The artefact that will choose our seven champions per school is the Scrying Sphere." He waved his hand and the silk cloth that had covered the sphere up to now flew up revealing something that reminded the muggleborns of the device that was used for drawing lottery numbers.

"Now Minister Black will tell you more about the process how you go about putting your name up for choosing." Dumbledore said, not showing his reluctance to share the spotlight.

"Thank you headmaster." Sirius said. "To choose the worthiest seven students of each Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang the Scrying Sphere will analyse your magical signatures. For this to work you need to get one of the small white balls that Professor Dumbledore is currently holding and place three drops of blood on your ball. The ball will absorb the blood and turn red. You hand over the red ball to the team that mans the Sphere which will then place the ball into it. The team will man the Sphere for the next twenty-four hours without exception. So no student under the age of fourteen will be able to slip through. They will also check if you are putting in your own name so cheating is out. The tasks are difficult and slightly dangerous so I want you to really think about entering your name."

Sirius looked at all tables with a severe look on his face.

"While we took away the penalty of losing your magic if you back out, if you are chosen it still creates a binding contract. To get out of that contract you will have to pay hundred galleons, except if a certified neutral healer provided by the Ministry, attests that for medical reasons you can't participate in the tasks. You will then be excused and the contract voided. Another candidate will then be chosen in that person's stead for the rest of the Tournament. Of course the local newspapers and other media will report if somebody quits and for which reasons so think very hard if you really want to enter your name." Sirius told them all.

"Thank you, Minister, for this clear warning." Dumbledore said. "As you heard you can enter within the next twenty-four hours. For the Hogwarts students, you will find a white ball in a box with your name on it on your respective nightstands. Of course only the fourth-years and up. The box opens with a tap of your wand and stating your name. Now I think we should all go to bed and rest, it has been a busy day."

* * *

Harry held his white ball in his hands. He was pondering if he should enter his name into the Sphere. He knew that the tasks would be difficult but he wanted to test his skills in a fair competition. He didn't have any idea what the tasks might be but it was tempting to find out and work his way past them. Seven students from Hogwarts would be chosen. Did he as a fourth-year even have a chance? Perhaps, but perhaps not. He would only be able to find out if he put his name into the Sphere. He looked to his left and saw Neville facing a similar problem. Ron had already put his blood on the ball turning it red while Dean and Seamus had declared that they didn't want to enter. Too much work and risk in their eyes. Neville might be pressured by his grandmother, who saw this as a chance to have him show the abilities of his family. But Neville was only just getting comfortable using his magic. He only got his own wand last year and had to make up for two years of thinking that he wasn't good at using magic.

He knew that Hermione didn't want to enter even if she was curious what challenges would be set up for the school teams. She was much happier with how the Tournament had been modified to make it much safer as the Triwizard Tournament had been given up because the death toll had become too high. Really, wizards were so stupid many times. Why would they even set up tasks that could end in the participants dying? It was a school tournament with students participating. It was meant to be entertaining and while challenging the main idea was to promote friendships between the students of the different schools. Being forced to write messages about the death of a child to its parents wasn't something that should be a distinct possibility. You could explain broken bones, cuts, perhaps some poisoning, all things you could treat with magic. While they weren't things you liked they weren't catastrophes either.

In the end, Harry pricked his forefinger and put the three drops of blood onto his ball turning it red. He would see if he got picked. It was a great chance which wouldn't come again in his life. And he didn't want to think what could have been. He would take his chance, and see where his decision led him. At least this time he would enter on his own free will if he was chosen, not because somebody forced a situation upon him.

* * *

Harry put his ball into the Sphere early in the morning. He didn't want everybody to make a big spectacle of it. The witch watching over the sphere nodded at him and Harry left to get breakfast. Today there were no classes as the teachers wanted to give the students a chance to watch who would enter his or her name into the competition. Not to mention allow their guests to look around and make contact with the Hogwarts students. Harry knew that he was expected to be helpful towards them. It came with being the son of the English Minister of Magic. He didn't mind though. Perhaps he could make some new friends among the foreign students.

Inside the Great Hall there were only a few students sitting at the tables. He spotted one of his friends from Ravenclaw, Jemina Cloppwater and went over to sit with her. She was in sixth year and had been a major contributor to the Magical Traditions group last year and had helped set up the petition to get a whole subject set up for all Hogwarts students.

"Hey Jemina, mind if I sit with you for breakfast?" Harry asked.

"Sure, sit down Harry. What are you doing up this early?" Jemina asked.

"I wanted to put my name into the Sphere without being stared at by everybody." Harry answered.

"I didn't think you would go for it. You hate your fame." Jemina said.

"That's true, but I also wanted to see how good I am if I get chosen. And this would be something that I really did, not something I don't even remember." Harry told her.

"Hm, makes sense so far. Is your Dad okay with you entering?" She asked.

"He said that he would support me whatever decision I made. It was my decision, he only told me to really think about it and not do it because others wanted me to enter or because I thought he expected it from me." Harry answered.

"That's cool. I didn't want to enter. I like theory better than practice and my wandwork isn't as good as it could be. While I can use all the spells we learned, sometimes they are sluggish." Jemina said. "But I think Roger Davies and Brittany Windfall are going to enter."

"That's nice. I don't know them that well except that Roger is on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team." Harry admitted.

"They're among the best student we have in Ravenclaw. I also know that Warrington of Slytherin put his name in. I saw him do so when I came down for breakfast." Jemina told Harry.

Harry grimaced. Warrington was one of the brutal members of Slytherin's Quidditch team. He hoped he wouldn't be chosen for the team.

* * *

Harry walked around the grounds alone, as Ron and Hermione wanted to watch the entering of others into the Tournament. The twins and Lee Jordan had put in their names after breakfast, as had Angelina Johnson. Ron did too, even if Malfoy mocked him. Ron had improved since he realised last year that to achieve his dreams he would have to step up his schoolwork. Harry didn't know if it would be enough, but he wished Ron the best of luck. At least with the Sphere choosing the teams, there would be no discussions how fair or unfair it was. All students that wanted to compete could enter their names, even if the probability to be chosen was lesser for the younger ones. The higher years had simply learned more magic.

He saw some of the Beauxbatons students lounge outside of their carriage and waved at them, which was returned. He continued his walk. He decided walking along the lake would be nice, as it was sunny and only a light breeze disturbed the warm rays of the sun. He played a bit with the giant squid by tickling his tentacles and then continued on. At the edge of the forest he saw something white run deeper inside, probably a unicorn. He smiled sadly remembering the one he had found dead in his first year at Hogwarts. That was before he had had his father in his life. Unicorns should come up with the curriculum for COMC this year if he remembered correctly. It would be interesting, that was for sure.

He did one lap around the lake before returning to the castle for lunch. He had worked up a nice appetite from his walk.

* * *

It was after another great feast, the house elves had really outdone themselves, that the whole school was watching the Sphere that now resided in front of the head table. Next to it there were three groups of seats in the colours of black, red and blue. Sirius stood next to the Sphere.

"The election of the competing groups will soon take place now. The Scrying Sphere will shoot out one ball with the name of a chosen champion and he or she will then come up here and take a seat in the sitting group reserved for his or her school. The seats as you can see are in the colours of your school robes, so Hogwarts gets the black armchairs, Beauxbatons the blue ones and Durmstrang the red ones. The Sphere will decide randomly so it can happen that the names are chosen by school, mixed wildly or otherwise so don't be impatient. In the end we will have seven champions from each school." Sirius said and nodded to Dumbledore to let him take over from there.

Dumbledore took the position of announcer for the names. He didn't like that Sirius was running part of the show but he could still make a major impression as the hosting headmaster of this tournament. He watched the Sphere glow silver until it flushed violet, and a ball dropped out of a pipe and onto a white cushion from where Dumbledore's took it.

"We have our first champion from Beauxbatons, Miss Fleur Delacour." Dumbledore said and a very pretty blonde girl strode forward and gracefully took a seat in a blue armchair, looking pleased that she had been the first one to be chosen.

The process continued and after Fleur another boy from Beauxbatons, Gregoire Sanjoir, was called. Then it was Viktor Krum from Durmstrang, Cedric Diggory for Hogwarts, Stefanie Gruber for Durmstrang, Fred Weasley for Hogwarts, Anabelle Poitier for Beauxbatons, Jennifer Fallmouth for Hogwarts, Ivan Romanov for Durmstrang, George Weasley for Hogwarts, Rosalie Richard for Beauxbatons, Jean-Paul Clotier for Beauxbatons, Nikolai Smirnov for Durmstrang, René Callabier for Beauxbatons, Christopher Wallace for Hogwarts, Harry Potter-Black for Hogwarts, Zephyr Itanov for Durmstrang, Katharina Gianos for Durmstrang, Bastian Marquis for Beauxbatons, Oliana Pinter for Durmstrang and Daphne Greengrass for Hogwarts.

Each of them walked forward and took one of the armchairs in the colour of their school robes. The mix of ages was quite balanced, even if neither Beauxbatons nor Durmstrang had any fourth-years among their champions, while Hogwarts had two in Daphne and Harry. Most of the chosen champions were in sixth or seventh year.

"Congratulations to all our champions." Dumbledore announced. "Now, we will tell you all more about the first task of the tournament. From this point on the champions are forbidden to ask for help with the tournament from their teachers or any Ministry employees. They are allowed though, to ask their fellow students and I am sure that all of you that weren't chosen will gladly help them if they ask you. Now Minister Black wants to give some hints for the first task."

"Thank you, Headmaster Dumbledore. The first task of the Triwizard Tournament was traditionally dedicated to test the reaction of the champions in a situation where they were confronted with the unknown. Under the aspect of making the tasks safer for our champions to master, we have decided to only give them some vague hints of what they can expect. The first task will test you on how you react to different elements. You will only be allowed to face the task with your wands. A ceremony of weighing your wands will be held in three days by Mr Ollivander, who has graciously agreed to help us to make sure they are all in perfect working order. The task will be held in the manner that each school will draw one element on which the challenges will be based. So you all should prepare for any kind of obstacle that could be related to this. That is all we will tell you for now." Sirius informed the group.

The students that weren't chosen were discussing what the clue could mean and they were excited to see their schoolmates face them. The three teams decided that they needed to set up training times and the Hogwarts team agreed to meet at nine the next morning to discuss how they would face this. They had students from all houses in the team even if Gryffindor with three champions had the most. Hufflepuff only had one champion, Ravenclaw two and Slytherin one.

* * *

**Okay, that was the selection of the champions. I have to keep a list of names now to keep them straight for the next chapters. Any ideas for tasks can be sent to me via PM or review, but PM has a better chance that I don't overlook any. Right now I have some ideas, but I'm open to suggestions.**


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